My name is Mariana and I am the new intern with LOU ROU. I'm so excited to be part of such a wonderful team! Some things you should know about me are that I'm 19 years old and I study photography at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. This summer I will be assisting LOUROU with their social media and photography. Make sure to check out LOU ROU’s official Instagram page @lourounewyork to see updates and all the cool photos and videos I will be posting this summer.

What I love about LOUROU bags is the perfect combination of their unique but also classic clutch styles. My favorite bag is the Frusta bag. I own it in black and wear everyday. I love how it can be casual but also edgy. It's perfect for every occasion. Whether I'm strolling through DUMBO or hitting the clubs on the weekend. One thing I'm proud of is I'm not a clutter bug when it comes to my purses. I only carry a few essentials everywhere I go. My must-have's in my purse are my wallet, keys, phone, Eos lip balm and whatever lip gloss I'm wearing at that moment. My latest fav has been Candy K by Kylie cosmetics.

I'm so excited to be working this summer with such a great company! Check out this blog, LOUROU’s Instagram and Facebook to see all the fun updates and photo shoots I'll be taking part in over the next month! Stay classy!

Modern jazz music is mostly awful. It is obscure for obscurity's sake and largely self-indulgent noodling. It didn't take me long to find an illustrative example:

This is modern jazz and this is the problem with modern jazz.(1)

Fortunately, actions have reactions and a generation is emerging that wants to renew jazz to days of old. Tired of fans who don't enjoy their shows, a young group of Juilliard-trained, New York-based musicians is trying to elevate jazz to its former prominence. Leading this charge are our friends Sammy Miller and the Congregation who just got back from Russia and are touring around the U.S. right now.

Jazz music used to be the country's most popular. You could party to it. It was playing at the bar you went to on a Saturday night. Now it is elevator music. What happened?

The reason we love this band so much is that they know what happened -- jazz is no longer fun. So jazz reactionaries have sought to remedy this by filling their shows with humor, with acrobatics, and by playing songs people know. Interpolating Drake's Hotline Bling into St. Louis Blues is not only a crowd-pleaser, it's the work of wildly talented musicians.

Everyone must see this band. It's a modern day tent revival and wholly unlike anything else out there. We're excited to keep up with the band and follow their successes.

Funny how things work out no? One day Lindsay was going at it on our apartment floor, cranking away making these bags and I was like "damn, Linds.. we could actually... sell these. They're pretty legit." Everyone would ask her and her friends where they got those bags from, and ...one sec, i need to put on a song...

ahhhhh, much better. Moving on.. so yeah, take some awesome designed bags, simple but complicated enough to look good, add some creative juices, taste, hustle, an awesome/great-looking team, and you have LOU ROU NEW YORK. We try to keep things fun, raw, approachable, and you know.. just laid back but classy at the same time.